Seventeen eBook

“Well, I guess I must run home,” she said.
And with one lift of her eyes to his and a shy laugh—­laughter
being a rare thing for Jane—­she scampered
quickly to the corner and was gone.

But though she cared for no reward, the extraordinary
restlessness of William, that evening, after dinner,
must at least have been of great interest to her.
He ascended to his own room directly from the table,
but about twenty minutes later came down to the library,
where Jane was sitting (her privilege until half after
seven) with her father and mother. William looked
from one to the other of his parents and seemed about
to speak, but did not do so. Instead, he departed
for the upper floor again and presently could be heard
moving about energetically in various parts of the
house, a remote thump finally indicating that he was
doing something with a trunk in the attic.

After that he came down to the library again and once
more seemed about to speak, but did not. Then
he went up-stairs again, and came down again, and
he was still repeating this process when Jane’s
time-limit was reached and she repaired conscientiously
to her little bed. Her mother came to hear her
prayers and to turn out the light; and—­when
Mrs. Baxter had passed out into the hall, after that,
Jane heard her speaking to William, who was now conducting
what seemed to be excavations on a serious scale in
his own room.

“Well, I found them! And where do you suppose
I’d put them? I found them under your window-seat.
Can you think of anything more absurd than putting
them there and then forgetting it? I took them
to the tailor’s to have them let out. They
were getting too tight for papa, but they’ll
be all right for him when the tailor sends them back.”

What the stricken William gathered from this it is
impossible to state with accuracy; probably he mixed
some perplexity with his emotions. Certainly
he was perplexed the following evening at dinner.

Jane did not appear at the table. “Poor
child! she’s sick in bed,” Mrs. Baxter
explained to her husband. “I was out, this
afternoon, and she ate nearly all of a five-pound
box of candy.”

Both the sad-eyed William and his father were dumfounded.
“Where on earth did she get a five-pound box
of candy?” Mr. Baxter demanded.

“I’m afraid Jane has begun her first affair,”
said Mrs. Baxter. “A gentleman sent it
to her.”

“What gentleman?” gasped William.

And in his mother’s eyes, as they slowly came
to rest on his in reply, he was aware of an inscrutability
strongly remindful of that inscrutable look of Jane’s.